Handelsregistereintragung - Commercial Register

Company Type	Time to Incorporate	Cost
GmbH	6-8 weeks	£2890

Commercial Register - Handelsregistereintragung

Companies of all legal forms must be entered in the Commercial Register. The Commercial register is kept by the local courts (Amtsgericht) and ensures legal certainty in trade since all actual and legal relationships are recorded there.

The Commercial Register provides information on, the company name, the name of the owner, the share capital of the GmbH, the granting of general powers of attorney.

As a result of the entry in the Commercial Register the company name is protected from identical or similar company names because every company name must be clearly different from all companies already entered in the Commercial Register of the same municipality.

The entry in the Commercial Register also documents to third parties that the company complies with standard business rules and practices and subjects itself, more particularly, to the Commercial Code (HGB).

Since by now every businessman is entitled to have himself entered in the Commercial Register on a voluntary basis, the entry does not allow any conclusions as to the size of the company.

Many banks and trading companies make the establishment of a business relationship dependent on the entry in the Commercial Register.

Company Name

The company name must lend itself to a characteristic description of the company and have a distinctive character.

Moreover, the company name must include an addition on the legal form which provides information on the liability relationship of the company. A Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (limited liability company) the designation GmbH.

The company name will be checked at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. We then need confirmation from the German Register of Companies "Handelsregister". There are more than 400 local Registers of Companies in Germany and several Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Chamber of Commerce and Industry

At the request of the local courts - registration courts - the Chambers must issue an expert opinion on the admissibility of the company name and support the court in the keeping of the Commercial Register.

The chamber checks in particular whether companies located or registered in the same municipality have a company name which might lead to confusion.

In the case of pure trading companies only the Chambers of Commerce and Industry are asked by the local courts to submit an expert opinion.